Although hopefully this is the kind of thanks that ends up helping Wulf in return.
I gave a presentation (mentioned in other threads) at a local con up here in Edmonton about working at BioWare as a writer. That was today. On Friday, two days ago, I found out that my idle, "Sure, I might be interested in running a game," had been turned into "Celebrity D&D With Patrick Weekes, 12:00-4:00", and I had Saturday to prepare.
I tried for something different from the normal dungeon hack. I tried, actually, for a heist capter in a D&D world -- an evil high priest has a staff that the party is gonna try to steal.
Used Grim Tales with a whole bunch of options -- Class Defense Bonus as a dodge bonus (plus an ugly "Your Massive Damage Threshold drops by 10 when you're flat-footed" which let the party do knockout-strikes on guards really easily, plus something kinda like the GT magic system. (I used something HeapThaumaturgist had mentioned, I think -- player rolls caster level plus ability modifier against a DC, then takes (spell-level)d6 nonlethal damage. I made the spell ALWAYS succeed, and if you rolled badly, you took extra damage for each point by which you failed the roll. And a spell of a higher level than caster-level-plus-ability-mod did lethal, not nonlethal.)
The game was a hoot. Lots of fun, really easy to play for anybody who knew D&D. People got a big kick out of their characters and enjoyed playing the weird people I came up with frantically over Saturday -- a Ded12 who smote undead and used Wild Empathy, a Smart12 with skills all over the place and nasty sneak attacks, and so forth.
At least one person, after the first restroom break, came back complaining that the dealers weren't selling Grim Tales, or he'd have picked up a copy right there. Hopefully it ends up with some sales. People really liked the low magic feel, and they LOVED the ability to toss in firearms/magic/vehicles/horror to suit their campaign. They were pretty geeked out.
And now, I sleep.
I gave a presentation (mentioned in other threads) at a local con up here in Edmonton about working at BioWare as a writer. That was today. On Friday, two days ago, I found out that my idle, "Sure, I might be interested in running a game," had been turned into "Celebrity D&D With Patrick Weekes, 12:00-4:00", and I had Saturday to prepare.
I tried for something different from the normal dungeon hack. I tried, actually, for a heist capter in a D&D world -- an evil high priest has a staff that the party is gonna try to steal.
Used Grim Tales with a whole bunch of options -- Class Defense Bonus as a dodge bonus (plus an ugly "Your Massive Damage Threshold drops by 10 when you're flat-footed" which let the party do knockout-strikes on guards really easily, plus something kinda like the GT magic system. (I used something HeapThaumaturgist had mentioned, I think -- player rolls caster level plus ability modifier against a DC, then takes (spell-level)d6 nonlethal damage. I made the spell ALWAYS succeed, and if you rolled badly, you took extra damage for each point by which you failed the roll. And a spell of a higher level than caster-level-plus-ability-mod did lethal, not nonlethal.)
The game was a hoot. Lots of fun, really easy to play for anybody who knew D&D. People got a big kick out of their characters and enjoyed playing the weird people I came up with frantically over Saturday -- a Ded12 who smote undead and used Wild Empathy, a Smart12 with skills all over the place and nasty sneak attacks, and so forth.
At least one person, after the first restroom break, came back complaining that the dealers weren't selling Grim Tales, or he'd have picked up a copy right there. Hopefully it ends up with some sales. People really liked the low magic feel, and they LOVED the ability to toss in firearms/magic/vehicles/horror to suit their campaign. They were pretty geeked out.
And now, I sleep.
